Quit procrastinating corporate Australia and get more women into leadership - Women's Agenda

Quit procrastinating corporate Australia and get more women into leadership

Following years of pushing for more women on ASX-listed boards – and making some, albeit extremely slow progress – activists are now turning their attention to the senior executive ranks and urging investors to do the same.

Business Council of Australia leader and HSBC chair Graham Bradley told an audience in Sydney on Wednesday that progress for women in leadership has been embarrassingly slow.

“I do not believe enough is being done by Australian businesses to advance women into leadership positions,” said Bradley.

“Companies that aspire to be well regarded must not procrastinate on this issue, but instead should take positive and constructive steps, appropriately designed for their individual circumstances, to make sure they are utilising the full range of human talent available in the Australian workforce.”

He made the comments at the launch of new guidelines from Women on Boards that companies can use for gathering data to monitor, evaluate and improve their initiatives to get more women into leadership roles. The guidelines include 44 key data indicators such as pay, promotion, flexible work and recruitment processes.

According to the 2012 Census on Women in Leadership, the picture for aspiring female business leaders is grim. Just seven ASX500 companies currently have a female CEO, while 40% of ASX200 companies still do not have a single woman on their boards.

Women on Boards executive director Claire Braund, believes a concerted effort is needed by company leaders and shareholders to accelerate gender diversity.

She agreed with Bradley that a key challenge for organisations relates to cultural factors holding women back. “It is a cultural mindset change that we are looking to achieve; not simply an additional set of reporting obligations,” said Bradley.

Braund told Women’s Agenda that a “three-plank strategy” was needed to combat cultural obstacles for women. First, more companies should adopt a 30% target for internal and external recruitment shortlists. Second, strong advocacy and sponsorship programs need to be created to endorse and encourage women to take the next step in their careers. Third, companies should hardwire accountability for gender diversity into the company.

“Someone needs to be accountable, ideally the CEO. Without this focus, it won’t happen. It’s even better if we can tie it to their bonus,” says Braund. “We often ignore the issues holding women back, assuming that human factors are just grist for the mill. But when we start to focus on them, we see how they can be overcome.”

Braund is encouraging major institutional investors to play a leading role in driving gender diversity forward. “They can look beyond the REM report and ask big questions like ‘why is there only one woman on the executive, and ask whether or not that is in the company’s best interest.”

The guidelines were introduced after Women on Boards noted confusion from companies following the introduction of the Workplace Gender Equality Act. The act requires companies with more than 100 employees to report on their gender diversity.

“There were a lot of companies scratching their heads about how they might go about reporting and managing, and we know there are a lot of people scratching their heads about they how to improve gender diversity across the board,” Braund told Women’s Agenda.

ASX200 boards are now 15.7% women, in 2009 that figure was below 10%. According to a recent report commissioned by the ASX Corporate Governance Council and conducted by KPMG, company size is a key factor in whether or not a company will be able to effectively implement gender diversity initiatives.

Braund believes gender diversity quotas would be hard to implement in an effective way across the entire ASX but could work for the larger listed companies. “If quotas were brought in, the ASX200 would complain but they could easily comply given the number of talented women in their ranks already. But it would be nigh impossible to enforce the quota across all listed companies,” she says.

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